Do You Need to Justify your Sales Force Size?

In these challenging times it’s difficult to justify an increase  in the sales force headcount (but certainly not impossible).  Maybe you’re even being asked to justify the current headcount. Or are you are in the unenviable position of knowing you need to reduce the headcount, but you’re not sure by how much.  It’s a tough issue which crops up time and time again. And with the cost of keeping a sales rep on the road anywhere from $150,000 to $250,000 it’s not something to be taken lightly.  The cost of getting the wrong answer is plain to see. 

How do you assess the sales force size?

There are a number of way to decide how many sales reps you need (sign up for our free report here).  We recommend using Sales Response Analysis to assess sales force size.  Cozmix has developed the sales response analysis technology while carrying out client projects in over thirty countries – we call it the SizeMix Process.

The main advantage of the SizeMix Process are:

• It creates compelling analysis – the conclusions are (almost) impossible to argue against
• The SizeMix Process breaks the sizing issue down to the product or brand level – so the final analysis gives insight into the optimal allocation of selling effort as well as the total headcount (key insight: the allocation of effort normally impacts profitability more than the sales force size!)
• The recommendation are transparent.  This is important.  If the sales force sizing process is a “black box” it will be difficult to get full commitment for the implementation – people simply will not understand the results and will be reluctant to implement the solution.  We have worked hard to ensure the SizeMix technology is 100% transparent.  You can even export the whole model to an Excel spreadsheet so you can see every part of the optimization calculation (tip: this is also a great way to share project results).
• Rapid analysis turnaround.  Things change – you need to be able to analyze and re-analyze changes to assumption. The SizeMix technology enables you to re-analyze changes to assumptions and scenarios rapidly and create high impact materials to communicate the results.
• SizeMix also builds confidence in the results by performing sensitivity analysis.  By changing key assumptions SizeMix shows the impact of each model element on the sales force size.  This visibly shows the sensitivity and robustness of the model to changes in the assumptions.  Often it is only when skeptical participant have seen the sensitivity analysis that they can fully support the final sales force sizing recommendation.

OK – I was skeptical but having seen the SizeMix sensitivity analysis I can now fully support the increase in sales force size

J. McC – VP of Sales Canada for Top 10 Pharma Company

Call Cozmix today (+1-407-901-4645) for a free, no pressure demonstration of the SizeMix Process.  Ask us about our 100% no risk guarantee.

 

SizeMix Process & Technology:

Here are some videos to give you a taste of the SizeMix technology which are an integral part of the SizeMix Process.  The first is an introduction to the SizeMix software

The second video goes into more depth to show you the basic workflow used by Cozmix

CallMix Demonstration:

CallMix is used in the SizeMix Process to analyze the structure, deployment and detailing plan for a sales force.  Here’s a short demonstration of some of the  capabilities (UPDATE: the latest version supports the updated Ribbon interface which provides an improved user experience)